


Burn

by rageprufrock



Category: Smallville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope is a slow burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn

_Just As Long As We're Together_ was on his fifth grade reading list, but it was one of  
the few English requirements in life Clark had never bothered to fulfill. It was the school  
year of his discontentment: his parents were going through what they referred to as "a  
rough patch, Clark, all parents have them, don't worry so much"; the farm was on its  
second mortgage, and Clark spent a lot of time in the barn, playing with the telescope that  
he'd gotten in third grade, pointing it at the pretty, dark-haired girl from P.E.

  
Fifth grade was appropriately blase for skipping reading assignments and wasting time to  
hide from reality. Tenth was markedly different and Clark fingered the edges of the book,  
worn with age but not from wear; he'd never bothered to read it and his mother had never  
bothered to move it from its place lying across the top of his bookshelf. Half the cover  
was a dingy, faded yellow, bleached out from five years of Kansas mornings and sunsets.

  
"It's a girl book, Dad," he'd complained, picking up a hay bale with surprising ease.  
"They can't make us read _girl books_." His father had begged to differ, and had ordered  
Clark off to his room to compromise his masculinity. Jonathan Kent Knew Best, or so  
Jonathan Kent seemed to think; Clark Kent, eleven years old and king of his half of the  
universe disagreed, and had gone up to his room to read Spiderman comics.

  
Clark studied what was left of the cover and found himself concurring with his own  
memory: _Just As Long As We're Together_ was a girl book. Still, age and time allowed  
him to see that it was only a girl's book because it was written about them; a slight shift in  
gender, a burst of testosterone flooding several wombs and the whole universe shifted.

  
He set the book down, and looked at the ceiling, bathed in moonlight.

*****

  
The red meteor rock had been a thrill for all of seventeen hours before he'd been at the  
checkout counter of a K-Mart in Metropolis buying condoms and the muted TV near the  
ophthalmology counter started flashing their "Special Report" icon. He'd been handing  
the checkout boy an ill-gotten twenty, stuffing Wayne Dalton's wallet back into his  
pocket, and watching idly, looking at the coast guard boats gather around floating pieces  
of metal and steel. The shaking camera focused on a breathing mask and the closed  
captioning appeared at the bottom of the screen like a black ribbon.

  
"-- Ripped from the body of the jet, Coast Guard officials say it's highly unlikely that  
anyone survived the crash -- "

  
The reporter's dialogue had been interrupted by the unending beeping of the checkout  
counter and Clark had frowned long enough to pull his attention back from "Paper or  
plastic, sir?" to hear CNN all-but-gleefully report that as of twelve forty-six AM that  
morning, no one knew the whereabouts of Lex Luthor or his new bride, Helen BryceLuthor.

  
Overhead lighting flickered and Clark had been hitting the last three feet before he  
emerged into the Metropolis evening where Judy from Akron was waiting for him behind  
the K-Mart to show him what bored Pennsylvania girls learned at Christian Academy.  
Even the siren call of a blowjob from an almost-eighteen year old had been put on  
temporary halt as he'd lingered there, on the yellowing laminate flooring, brow furrowed  
and brain grinding.

  
There was an organic separation between Clark's day to day thoughts and those he'd had  
during his psychotic stint, and he pressed that boundary sometimes. He remembered that  
in that moment, he'd been almost more Clark than red meteor rock Clark. He  
remembered thinking about how excited he'd been when Lex offered to drive up to  
Metropolis with him, how the idea of sharing the penthouse and reigning as princes over  
the city had sent a certain thrill up his spine. He had remembered how he'd been betrayed  
and then cheering up at the bruise he knew he gave Lex later in recompense. He  
remembered not being mad any longer; after all, Lex hadn't really understood what was  
going on, he still thought Clark was a kid and not a grown man. Lex was a responsible  
guy, or if not that, he faked it well; it wasn't anyone's fault that Clark had simply  
forgotten to mention that he was past all that farm and cows and hay shit, and how he was  
ready to walk in Lex's admirably well-dressed footsteps.

  
As far as Clark had been concerned at that moment, he and Lex were back in the good,  
pending a few involved conversations about ratting one another out and how Lex had  
gotten progressively more boring under the influences of Smallville. That was all  
peripheral, though, since if Clark was going to have to some fun with Lex, then he'd have  
to make sure Lex was there to have fun with. Besides, it was pretty rank to let a seriously  
kickass guy like Lex (who had, Clark learned through rampant rumor and innuendo,  
earned more money making designer drugs his freshman year of college than most upper  
management did in a year) go down in literal flames.

  
It was that conclusion that had him beating a quick path out to the motorcycle and leaving  
Judy to her waiting.

  
He hadn't been thinking about his family at all.

  
He still wasn't thinking about Helen.

*****

  
Clark was forgetting what frappaccinos tasted like, and as far as he'd known, in his two  
plus years of being a regular at the Beanery and the Talon, that many afternoons sucking  
them down had made the process impossible. Clark remembered Lex frowning at him  
with amused disgust, saying how frappaccinos weren't real coffee, just an ugly bastard  
child of an espresso and a chocolate milkshake; Clark remembered grinning, taking a  
deep sip, and sighing in contentment just to see the frown waver unwillingly into a  
chuckle.

  
But the smell of coffee was burned into his memory, like the raised scar tissue that still  
lingered on the left side of his chest, only darker, and still painful. He'd been awakened  
from sleep by the smell of coffee and a migraine; light had seared his eyes and he could  
still feel all the muscles in his body protesting as he'd forced himself up on his elbows.  
He'd heard his mother say, "You're awake. I'm so glad. Jonathan, he's awake."

  
He'd remember that forever, how happy she'd sounded that he'd survived.

  
Then he'd remember opening his eyes all the way, seeing her tired face, the dark circles  
under her eyes and how terribly thin she'd gotten. She had opened her arms and tried to  
gather him in, to say, "Oh, Clark, we were so worried," but she'd never gotten far enough  
to touch him.

  
Clark was still smelling Folgers brew in his nostrils as he'd been slung loosely against the  
edge of the motel tub, mildewed tiled blurring as he threw up until he was left dry  
heaving against the cheap fixtures.

  
He was still amazed by the things the brain picked and chose to remember from moments  
of great distress. He couldn't recall what his father had been saying, or if he'd been  
saying anything at all as Clark had crawled into the tub stained with his own vomit and  
turned the shower to a bitter cold spray of water, screaming at the top of his lungs as  
realization set it. He wouldn't ever know how his mother, all one hundred and forty-three  
pounds of her, had managed to drag him yelling and fighting out of the tub and back into  
bed, wrapping him in blankets while she was still crying just as hard as he was. Clark  
didn't bother to try and remember what Pete had been doing, only saw the vague, familiar  
shadow of a friend in a corner, eyes preternaturally bright during all of it.

  
Clark remembered, instead of all those Technicolor tragedies, the sound of the TV, low  
and steady in the background, saying:

  
"Efforts to recover the last pieces of the LuthorCorp jet continue."

*****

  
Smallville's only other goth, Amanda Perrin, who seemed to be in Clark's English class  
every year, had once said that life was equal parts ecstasy and agony just before she'd  
called the entire English department political whores and returned to picking at her black  
nail polish.

  
Clark had long since decided that she was mostly right, but had forgotten an important  
component part: guilt.

  
It was a strange balance he lived in, torn between detached fascination with the events of  
that horrible week between Metropolis, the Pacific ocean, and Smallville and all the same  
utterly consumed by the details. He found himself totally uninterested and feverish with  
curiosity by turns.

  
What remained without fail on every occasion was guilt and grief, moving in waves that  
shifted and sank brilliant red claws into his awareness when he was least prepared to deal  
with either. They came in pairs, but regarding different things. His new status as a  
double murderer was a point of focus, the origin of his long, winding experiments with  
guilt and self-loathing. He was a modern-day Cain, so consumed with jealous worry on  
one level or another that he'd plot to murder his new sibling in order to keep his parents'  
love, and how brilliantly he'd succeeded and how brightly he'd failed. His parents  
seemed to love him with a renewed sort of determination, as if blind affection could  
simply cut away the fact that they would never forgive him, much less forget, what he'd  
done and what they'd lost to the alien child that had already rained down so much  
misfortune. He had loved his little brother or sister, on a purely obligatory, expected  
level and degree. And he felt pain and guilt for having killed and for having hurt his  
mother.

  
The explosion of the ship, Clark knew, had knocked out power for miles and created mild  
tremors all the way into Nevada. Seismologists had speculated it was some sort of  
geological anomaly, frowned, adjusted their glasses, and went about their business.  
Tornado alley narrowed its eyes, scowled, and added yet another natural disaster to its  
impressive array; twisters and droughts weren't enough, apparently. Citizens of  
Smallville began their typical regimen of repress and deny.

  
Action News 4 was out of commission for nearly forty minutes while the engineers there  
tried to understand how something had managed to destroy their satellite capabilities as  
well as both their backup generators.

  
It wasn't too far an extrapolation to assume that maybe the force of the explosion had  
knocked out a communication tower or two.

  
Hating himself for killing Lex was entirely different.

*****

  
Clark hadn't spoken to his mother in over a month. He let his mouth move, and sounds  
come out, but he was pretty sure he was talking about the weather and irrigation ditches  
and nothing of any substance at all; he could see the dimness in his mother's eyes and  
could only assume that his inference was right. As far as Clark was concerned, he didn't  
have a right to speak to her for the rest of his life. He didn't even ask her to pass the salt.

  
He did ask if it was all right to make up a plate and eat it in the loft. She said "OK," and  
Clark said "Thanks" and they parted ways again. Divergent paths were important now,  
and Clark never stayed long enough to watch the pain blossom in her eyes again at this  
retreating figure.

  
He curled up in front of the loft window and set his dinner aside. He wasn't hungry.

  
Clark picked up _Just As Long As We're Together_ and started to read again on page  
seventy-six, fingers stroking down the sides of the paper. The pages were yellow but  
flawless, old but in perfect condition from disuse. Clark couldn't help but to take some  
pride in how the spine of the book was perfectly smooth.

  
"Rebellion is its own narcotic, Clark," Lex had told him once, bent over the pool table,  
staring at the six ball with a calculating hunger. "I overdosed on it as a teenager, and I  
can still admit, even with a juvenile record the size of a Russian tragedy, that small  
amounts are absolutely essential to life." Clark always took everything that Lex said  
seriously, since Lex didn't seem serious enough about anything. "What if rebellion leads  
to bad ends?" Clark had asked, prophetic in ways he wouldn't understand and wouldn't  
feel until a year later, crouched in the hollowed-out remnants of a storm cellar, his world  
falling to pieces around himself. Lex had shrugged, positioned his cue, and made a quick,  
stroke with it; Clark watched the six ball slip almost soundlessly into the front left pocket  
as Lex said, "Breathing can lead to bad ends, Clark. Why not have a little fun on your  
way out?" Clark had found himself agreeing, but also agreeing that he could never be  
like Lex, to simply see disaster and invite it with a smile.

  
Clark remembered though, that he _had_, at least once.

  
He'd abandoned the bike just outside the K-Mart and set out on foot, mostly because he  
liked the feel of the wind on his face, partly because it was faster.

  
Responsibility was a foreign concept at best with red meteor rock humming in his veins,  
but irritation could appear all the same. He could taste his own annoyance on his tongue  
even now, weeks removed, and the night air brushing in his hair as he thought that the  
rescue workers were a bunch of fucking idiots, that they'd never get there in time. The  
thought led to others which resulted in his own dissatisfaction with the whole "secrecy"  
thing that had kept his laudable skills from the world. If only he'd been able to act out, be  
himself, stop worrying so much about fitting in and concern himself a little bit more with  
Lex's lessons on world domination and how to enjoy it, they might have just made an idle  
call out to Kent Farms and he and Lex would be cruising down the interstate in  
Metropolis now.

  
And he'd been certain at that moment that it was Helen's fault. That bitch had been the  
end of anything interesting as far as it came to Lex. No more late night PS2 sessions at  
the castle -- "It's really not appropriate, Clark. I don't live alone anymore, you know," --  
no more interesting stories about Lex's past conquests -- "I'm engaged now, Clark, it's all  
in the past. Besides, I could be arrested for corrupting a minor," -- and most glaringly,  
the marriage and subsequent honeymoon slash deathtrap debacle. If Lex had simply been  
content to stay cheerfully single and stop throwing himself at every woman who had  
wandered along with dark hair and mildly impressive tits, then he and Clark could have  
had some fun. Clark was willing to forgive _Lex_, since they'd bonded over crushed  
fenders and pool and it was a guy thing, after all, but Helen was out of the question.  
She'd obviously have to be taken out of the picture. Lex would be persuaded (through  
any means necessary, he remembered thinking) that it was for the best, after all.

  
He remembered being annoyed with the idea that Lex would probably need  
hospitalization as a result of the rescuers' incompetence, how Lex would be out of  
commission and very little fun. Unless of course Lex on medications decided to indulge  
Clark on meteor rock and the two of them stole a car and went clubbing. That seemed  
farfetched even then; more so when he took a left and came to a screaming halt by the  
beach where he saw Coast Guard boats in the high tide and news vans parked atop the  
secondary dunes. The ratty fences were knocked down or ignored and the lights lit up the  
sky like it was an artificial dawn.

  
Clark had spent a good deal of his ninth grade year discovering the limits of his abilities,  
a secret hobby which even the red meteor rock version of himself could appreciate.  
Oxygen wasn't a required variable and he was in the water --

  
"Clark!"

  
He jerked hard enough to tear out a page of the book, and he stared at it in mute shock as  
heavy footsteps made it up the stairs at a quick clip. "Clark," his father said again, and it  
took Clark nearly a minute to get it together enough to turn around.

  
"Yeah, Dad?" he said, staring up with what he knew were expressionless eyes.

  
His father opened his mouth, and the hard, dark expression was still there on his face.

  
Clark couldn't unravel exactly how his father felt, hadn't been able to since that first night  
at the hospital, and that cold, hateful look that had sent him scampering after the red  
meteor rock anyhow. He liked it; it was nice to know that someone wasn't too concerned  
with being a good parent to tell the truth, even if it wasn't in words. It wasn't difficult to  
decipher his father, never had been. Jonathan Kent was a simple, honest man, and his  
face had taken on all those moral platitudes with which he'd lectured his son. Clark saw  
on his father's face betrayal, disappointment, warring grief and love and the ever present  
victor, loathing. It was cathartic in the worst way.

  
"I've been yelling for you since I got in the barn," his father said, frowning.

  
Clark blinked. "I didn't hear you. Sorry."

  
Jonathan Kent nodded, looked away, and started down the steps again. "Don't stay out  
here too late; your mother doesn't sleep as well if you're not in the house."

  
Clark nodded and listened to the thick sound of boots against wood fade way.

*****

  
"That's because _you_ didn't want to be _mine_!" on page two hundred and ninety-three  
seemed ridiculously applicable to Clark's life. Every interaction he had with each of his  
friends, family, and confusingly significant significant others could have included that  
particular line of dialogue, and Clark felt for Stephanie.

  
He had the uncomfortable feeling that Lex and Chloe would sympathize with Rachel.

  
But all the same, he felt a similar trill of rising irritation at those words. He hadn't been  
the one who had pulled away, bit by bit, moment by moment, till the day when being  
asked to be best man at a wedding was more of a shock than he was willing to let on.  
There was always that note of miserable shame and loss, to have to put up a good front  
for the world, pretend that he and Lex were still the best of friends. Whether it was the  
result of having spent so long and lobbying so hard for the town of Smallville to believe  
in the possibility for a smalltown farmboy to become the confidant of a billion-dollar  
mogul, or simple inability to admit to others even if he knew it himself that something  
had changed for the worse.

  
And Clark could say it in his brain, if he couldn't say it out loud, that he knew he had a  
great part in the distance that had grown by inches and then miles between Lex and  
himself. There were so many stressors, and the friendship had always been tenuous,  
anyway -- hadn't it? -- so inexplicable and strange and unprecedented. The added factors  
of red meteor rocks and attempted murder investigations and all the secrets and lies  
seemed to weave themselves like a large, brilliant tapestry that separated the two of them.

  
Clark had never been great with apologies and Lex always had problems with forgiveness.

  
But that morning had sent a wave of comfort over him, given Clark something new with  
which to start laying foundations for a friendship again. The excited light in Lex's eyes,  
his attention and his happiness, all of those were rare commodities and Clark has taken  
them for granted before; he wouldn't the second time around.

  
He wouldn't have a chance to, either.

  
"I _felt_ left out. I _felt_ you weren't my best friend anymore," Rachel continued, after  
being determinedly stalked by Stephanie, and Clark let his fingers play over the black  
typeface, fourteen point and formatted for the readability of twelve year old girls and not  
seventeen year old alien orphans.

  
But that was what metaphor was all about, wasn't it?

*****

  
" -- Clark!"

  
And he'd pulled his head out of that cool, blue water, whipping his hair out of his face  
and narrowing his eyes, focusing on the source of the familiar voice.

  
It had been Pete, barreling down the beach with a determined expression on his face and  
he'd sneered, been preoccupied with the idea of slapping him away until he'd felt it, the  
nauseous ache and by the time he turned around Jonathan Kent's ashen face was right  
there and so was the glowing green meteor rock, pressed into the hollow of his throat.

  
Thoughts swam in his head as they'd dragged him out of the tide and onto the far side of  
the beach, where his father had held the meteor rock there longer than necessary while  
Pete took off the ring.

  
Clark wanted to say, even as the haze of red disappeared, that Lex was still out there and  
they were supposed to be legendary.

  
He'd passed out then, with stars bleeding into one another overhead and tears streaming  
down his face and the cold, stark realization that his best friend was going to die.

  
He woke up to the smell of coffee.

*****

  
Clark asked, much later, how they'd found him at all, what exactly had compelled them to  
go to the California shoreline to find him. The timing didn't make sense: Jonathan and  
Pete went by way of Ford truck, Clark went by way of alien superspeed. There was no  
tortoise/hare comparison there, the winner was obvious and a forgone conclusion. But  
his father and Pete had been waiting for him, and that meant they'd known where he was  
going to go before he did, that the meteors that littered Smallville had turned them into  
psychics or some less plausible explanation.

  
His father said they saw the news reports about Lex's downed plane, about how HQ for  
search and rescue had been set up on a little Santa Monica shoreline. Reporters swarmed  
there and Coast Guard docked there and it was the center of every kind of attention.  
"When we knew that was where they were looking for Lex, we figured that's where we  
ought to look for you."

  
And still, he hadn't understood what everyone else around him already did.

  
"Why did you go there, though?" Clark had pressed, car rumbling on the way back to  
Kansas.

  
It was an easier question than, "Will you and mom ever forgive me?"

  
His father's fingers had tightened on the wheel, white-knuckled and tense like a  
bowstring. "It was our best guess, Clark," Jonathan Kent had managed. "You went  
running off after Luthor last time this happened."

  
Clark had spent some quality time musing that idea in between generous self-loathing  
and complicated plots to commit suicide.

*****

  
Losing Lex was different than losing his brother or sister, more tangible. Clark saw  
pieces of his little brother or sister in the crib his father couldn't bear to take apart, in the  
new wrinkles and lines that had formed on his mothers' face, in the gloom that descended  
over the farmhouse. Those were all avoidable; he could hide from everything that  
remained.

  
Clark saw Lex everywhere. Lex was on the news, in the papers, his corporation was in a  
frenzy and only the practiced hand of his board of directors and Gabe Sullivan kept it  
from falling into shambles. But more, and more vividly, Clark thought he saw Lex,  
always just around the corner, stepping out of his latest car and stroking the curve of the  
hood appreciatively. He spent half his life expecting Lex to suddenly appear with a  
snappy explanation and a derisive snort at the whole "presumed dead" nonsense; "I'm a  
Luthor, Clark," Lex would say, "I'm insulted you thought a little plane crash could knock  
me out of the running. Didn't I ever tell you about Alexander's wound -- ?"

  
Lex permeated Smallville, and Clark had never hated the town more.

  
There wasn't anywhere he could turn to hide from memories. Main street was lined with  
shops that Lex hadn't exactly _frequented_, but had visited, either out of idle curiosity or  
late-night desperation for food in between housekeepers. "Ashton's has the best cake,  
Clark," Lex had said, wild-eyed and sleep deprived, perfectly pressed all the same.  
"Weren't you supposed to be sleeping?" he'd asked in reply. "I'm writing bylaws," Lex  
had said, as if it was an explanation. The Talon was just around the corner and even if  
Lana refused to speak to Clark they called a temporary truce when he wandered in after  
school to drink coffee and watch CNN; the funny thing that Clark had never realized was  
their deepest bond was through mutual debt. Clark owed Lana her parents and Lana  
owed Clark the Talon and both of those debts touched Lex's life, as well. He was their  
red thread of manufactured fate and Clark thought sometimes, at his darkest, that he and  
Lana were never destined to be, that maybe the red thread was supposed to snap.

  
Lex was delivery routes and the bridge and rivers. Lex was bottled water and pool cues  
and the unmistakable sound of wood cracking against wood. Lex was pitching hay in the  
barn and smiling through the horseshit and Lex was the cool, dark, indulgent smell of  
Luthor manor. Lex was the barn loft at sunset and Lex occupied an entire wall of his  
bulletin board slash bedroom: news clippings praising his prospects and special reports  
on his life that came out in rapid succession in Time, Newsweek, and People by turn. It  
was hard not to burn them.

  
Clark didn't try to tell himself he was so broken up because he and Lex had been  
amazingly good friends, that they'd never had a fight and that Lex had been a brother.

  
Clark knew all the reasons why.

  
Losing a best friend was hollowing out the middle of every picture: something large and  
gaping and ugly replacing what had once been ordinary, sometimes good, sometimes bad,  
but always complete.

*****

  
He was always swimming in his dreams, the ocean wide and blue and with light melting  
into patterns in his vision as he delved deeper and deeper.

  
Lex was always just another foot away, skin pain and ghostly and eyes open, blue as the  
ocean and preternaturally calm, coolly waiting for Clark to reach him, above having to  
reach out and grab for help.

  
And distantly, just as strange and ethereal as the light that filtered down into the murky  
water Clark heard the sound of his parents asking him to save his brother, save his sister,  
and the sound of his father, saying that this was the consequence he should have known  
would come to pass. But he couldn't focus on any of that because Lex would put his  
hand in Clark's and they'd swim to the surface, emerge like newly-made men and smile at  
one another. Clark, red meteor rock or not, would look at Lex, and Lex would look at  
Clark. They'd swim to shore and drive to Metropolis and look at the stars and be.

  
But that never happened -- not even in the dreams.

  
"I'm sorry," Rachel told Stephanie. "I guess I was trying to hurt you the way you hurt  
me."

  
And Lex, if that was ever his intention, had succeeded like he did in all other things.

  
"I never tried to hurt you," he'd tell Lex, once he reached him beneath the white-foamed  
waves.

  
"But you did," Lex would insist, just like Rachel, and his eyes would be black.

  
"Then I'm sorry, too," Clark would say, and Lex would take his hand.

  
They'd wade to shore where Clark's mother and father would wait with blankets to throw  
over their shoulders, where Clark's little sister would point and laugh and Lana and Chloe  
would smile at him, nothing more or less.

  
But the important thing, Clark had found over the weeks, in between waking up and  
pretending to be alive and breathing in and out, was falling back asleep to dive back into  
that water and bridge the final three feet between himself and Lex where everything  
would right itself.

  
Hope was a slow burn.

  
Meanwhile, he'd just tread water.


End file.
